But Being Spent
by chocolatequeen
Summary: Part of the Being to Timelessness verse: In To Make Much of Time, the TARDIS brought Rose back from Pete's World just before the Void closed. What if that hadn't happened? When Rose starts travelling with the dimension cannon, how will they react to all the near misses when they can tell, thanks to their bond, that they're in the same universe again?
1. Chapter 1

**AN:** An alternate ending of my own fic, because I really wanted to explore this idea, but I also wanted To Make Much of Time to be a Doomsday fixit. I recommend reading that first, but if you don't want to, all you need to know to understand this is that Rose and the Doctor have a telepathic bond, and she's time sensitive.

Hopping to Pete's World was like jumping into an icy cold lake. The love and adoration the Doctor had projected to her only a moment ago disappeared, and Rose's lungs seized up at the loss.

She stood there for a second, staring at the barren white wall, then she threw herself at it. "Take me back!" she sobbed as she pounded against it. "Take me back, take me back!"

"It's stopped working," Pete said in a quiet voice. "He did it. He closed the breach."

"No," Rose moaned quietly, but the sharp pain in her mind told her Pete was right. The Doctor wasn't there.

 _Rose…_

A sob caught in her throat, and she pressed herself closer against the wall. The pain and desolation she felt was suddenly not all her own. _Doctor?_

 _Love…_

Rose stretched her mind as far as she could, gasping when she felt the Doctor's brush against hers. For a brief moment, it gave her hope that somehow, he would reach through the Void and take her home, but then the sensation faded and her mind was truly empty for the first time in months.

Her sobs then were inconsolable. She slid down the wall and curled up against it, not wanting to believe he was truly gone. Eventually, Mickey had to pick her up and carry her to Pete's Jeep for the ride to the Tyler mansion.

The first four months Rose was in Pete's World passed in a blur. After two months, her mum tried to get her to rejoin the rest of the world, and that was when Rose finally explained to her the nature of their engagement.

"It's not just that I miss seeing him and holding his hand," she said, her voice choked. "He was there in my head, and now he's not. An' it's like… like I'm constantly looking for something that never shows up."

Jackie held Rose while she cried, muttering darkly about weird alien rituals. Rose couldn't even laugh at that, because the Doctor wasn't there to gloat about being right.

But after that, Jackie backed off—and she didn't let anyone else pester Rose either. Gradually, the ache in her mind became a background pain, instead of something she was aware of at every moment of every day. Whether that was because it was actually getting better, or because she was getting used to the level of pain, Rose was grateful for the relief.

And then one night, four months after she fell, she had a dream. The Doctor was calling her name. When she woke up, she was sitting bolt upright in bed, and the voice was still there, only now it was whispering across their bond, calling her name, drawing her close.

Rose closed her eyes and focused on that faint call. Reaching for it strained her mind, but when she succeeded, the completeness she felt was worth the ache.

He beckoned to her again, and she tried to promise him that she was coming. Then she dressed quickly and roused her parents and Mickey out of bed, hoping all the while that they would believe her.

Pete was the only one who doubted, but he was quickly overruled. Within an hour, everyone was dressed and the Jeep was filled with petrol. After tossing her bag in the back, Rose climbed in and closed her eyes, focusing on her bond with the Doctor.

They drove all day and through the night, following the voice in Rose's head. When she spotted the sign and realised what the name meant, hope welled up inside her. _A message to lead myself here,_ she remembered.

She barely let the Jeep come to a complete stop before jumping out, running onto the beach. At the water's edge, she felt the connection in her mind strengthen, and she turned just in time to see a faint outline of the Doctor appear.

A strand of hair blew in her face, and she brushed it away impatiently. "Where are you?"

"Inside the TARDIS. There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close." His Adam's apple bobbed. "And it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova." He chuckled weakly. "I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye."

Rose's knees wobbled at the word goodbye, even though she'd already suspected. She forced a smile. "You look like a ghost."

"Hold on." He pointed the sonic screwdriver at something she couldn't see, and his image solidified.

Rose took a step toward him, her hand out. "Can I…"

The muscle in his jaw twitched. "I'm still just an image. No touch."

She knew exactly how much that had cost him to say. The bond was weak, coming through the Void and across who knew how many light years, but the vivid sensation of his emptiness seared its way across time and space into her own heart.

"Can't you come through properly?" Rose begged. A goodbye wasn't enough; it would never be enough.

The Doctor shook his head. "The whole thing would fracture. Two universes would collapse."

"Is there any way… the bond," she said, hoping against hope that he knew a way to keep them connected, even across the Void.

His fist clenched. "There's no way to maintain a telepathic connection over the Void. This is only possible because of the crack, and I'll—" He pressed his lips together. "I'll have to make sure it's closed after we say goodbye."

Rose choked back a sob. She missed him so much.

"Rose, I'm—"

She shook her head fiercely. "Don't. Don't say you're sorry."

He hesitated, but finally nodded. "Where are we?" he asked, changing the subject before either of them could think of a convincing reason to break through the Void. "Where did the gap come out?" The Doctor looked around, and Rose wondered if the projection was showing him more than it did her.

"We're in Norway."

"Norway. Right," he said, as if that was what he'd expected.

"About fifty miles out of Bergen. It's called Dårlig Ulv Stranden."

"Dalek?" His eyes widened and he scanned the beach frantically.

"Dårlig," Rose pronounced clearly. "It's Norwegian for bad. This translates as Bad Wolf Bay." They both laughed a little at that—she'd really seen everything when she was Bad Wolf, hadn't she?

 _But if I saw everything, why couldn't I find a way to keep this from happening?_ Rose gritted her teeth and forced the thought to the back of her mind. Down that road lay madness, she knew.

"How long have we got?" she asked, wanting to change the subject.

"About two minutes."

Rose nodded once and wiped the tears from her eyes. Two minutes wasn't nearly enough time to say all she wanted to say, but she wouldn't waste it.

She lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye. "I love you."

His eyes closed and he was silent for several seconds before he looked at her again. "I love you, too."

She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed against the power of their combined grief, then she gathered her strength and looked at him. "Am I ever going to see you again?" she asked, cutting to the chase.

"You can't, love." The words were barely more than a whisper.

A timeline glimmered in the distance, and Rose suddenly smiled. "Don't know you know me well enough to know I will always find a way back to you?"

That muscle in his jaw twitched, and even through this tiny hole in the walls between the worlds, she could feel the strength of his guilt. "Rose…"

She shook her head furiously, cutting him off. She wouldn't let him tell her to have a fantastic life, not again. Not when there was an empty place in her mind that ached for him.

He nodded, understanding what she wouldn't say, and accepting it. "You've got your family though, that's good."

"There's five of us now," she told him. "Mum, Dad, Mickey, and the baby."

Even though they both knew it was impossible, she felt a wave of shock from him, followed by a confusing mixture of wild hope and gut-wrenching loss. "You're not…"

Rose half-smiled. "No. It's Mum. She's three months gone. More Tylers on the way."

She cocked her head and looked at him, a thought just occurring to her. "What are you going to do?"

"Oh, I've got the TARDIS. Same old life, last of the Time Lords."

"On your own?" He nodded, but Rose knew the TARDIS disapproved of this as much as she did. "You need… I need you to…" She swallowed hard. "I want you to find someone to travel with."

He took half a step back, but she wouldn't give up. "You can't just… don't hide behind your walls, Doctor."

Precious seconds ticked by before he nodded.

Rose lifted her chin. "I love you," she said one more time, hoping it would be enough to get him through until they were together again.

The barest hint of a smile flickered across the Doctor's face. "You really aren't going to give up, are you?"

"Not bloody likely."

Time was almost up, and they both knew it. "Be careful, Rose," he said urgently. He lifted his hand up in midair before dropping it back to his side.

A moment later, Rose felt the brush of his mind against hers, strengthening their bond. A torrent of emotion flooded into her mind: pain, guilt, grief, but mostly love.

She knew what he was doing. The few seconds they had left would never be enough to say everything they wanted, so instead he was showing her. Tears streaming down her face, she focused inward while still keeping her eyes fixed on his projection and attempted to do the same thing.

They both gasped the moment she managed to push through the Void to him. Returning this mental caress was almost like being held one last time… almost.

Finally, the projection flickered and disappeared, severing their bond in the process. Rose cried out and dropped to the sand with her head in her hands.

A moment later, she felt familiar arms wrap around her shoulder. "That's right, sweetheart," her mum said, stroking her hair out of her face. "Just let it all out."

"He's gone again, Mum," she sobbed, and she knew Jackie knew what she meant.

"Well then you'll just have to find a way to get back to him, won't you?" she said bracingly. "Lord knows that man is hopeless without you."

Rose chuckled weakly. "I'm not sure where to begin," she said honestly.

"Rose Tyler," Jackie said sternly, "your father is the director of Torchwood. You've got access to more fancy gadgets than anyone except himself, probably. And you don't know where to start finding a way home?"

She stood up and held out her hand. "We've been sitting too long, if your mind has gone that much. Come on; we'll stay the night someplace and then head home tomorrow, where you'll start learning everything you can about this Void."


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I promise the angst level goes down with every chapter. That being said... this is only chapter 2.

For the next two years, Rose spent her days working with Dr. Malcolm Taylor to develop a dimension cannon, and her nights studying quantum physics and mechanics until she understood the theories behind transdimensional travel herself. But even when they had a finished prototype, the walls between the worlds remained solid. If the device worked, she'd never know it.

When Pete called her to his office for a meeting, Rose knew what he was going to say and headed him off at the pass. "I can't just stay here, Pete."

The director of Torchwood leaned forward against his desk. "But the Doctor said it was impossible to get back."

Rose straightened her shoulders and smiled at her almost-dad. "He knows better than to think I won't look for a way back to him." Pete sat back in his chair and sighed heavily, and Rose knew she needed a better argument. "I belong in the TARDIS, with the Doctor. I don't fit in this world, Pete, and you know it," she said softly.

It was a truth no one liked to talk about. Mickey and Jackie had been able to slip into the identities of their parallel selves, but there was no Rose shaped hole in this world. Her presence here jangled against her nerves, and even people who didn't know the truth sometimes looked at her like they couldn't quite figure out why she was there.

After a long pause, Rose said, "Now, I'm not gonna change my mind, so unless you're ordering the termination of the project, I'd like to get back to work."

Pete Tyler rubbed at the furrow creasing his forehead. "Your mother wouldn't speak to me for a week if I tried to stop you."

"It will work, Pete." Rose stretched across his desk and took his hand. "I know it will."

The stars started going out the next week. As the walls between the worlds dissolved, the results of the dimension cannon tests improved. The first successful test was with a stuffed horse. Mickey laughed when she told him she was sending Arthur through the window, and the rest of the team looked at them, confused. When Arthur disappeared from the lab, the team stared at the spot where it had been for thirty seconds before erupting into cheers.

They sent a drone through next, with the cannon programmed for an automatic recall. Once it came back unscathed, Pete gave the green light for Rose to begin jumping.

That evening, Rose wrote a series of letters to her family and all her friends in Pete's World and put them in an envelope. She handed it to Mickey the next morning, and when he frowned at it, she said, "After I find the Doctor, I won't be coming back to say goodbye. Make sure everyone gets those?" He nodded, and she suited up in the boots and blue leather jacket she'd chosen for her uniform.

The first time she jumped, she honestly believed she would go home that day. Instead, she ended up in a world where Germany had won the Second World War. She was stuck hiding for over an hour while she waited for the cannon to recharge. The wrongness of this future gave her a headache; her fledgling time senses were getting stronger and stronger, and she knew somehow that someone had toyed with the timelines to make this reality happen.

Rose left the bit about the messed up timelines out when she wrote her report. This Torchwood might be different from the one that had separated her from her Doctor, but if she could avoid letting them know she wasn't entirely human, she would.

When her next jump landed her in another world that was not her own, Rose resigned herself to the fact that this was going to take longer than she'd hoped. That didn't mean she didn't hope every time she pressed the button, or that it didn't hurt every time she realised she wasn't home, but adjusting her expectations meant it wasn't a crushing loss each time.

After the fifteenth failed jump, the fifteenth universe that wasn't her own, Mickey was waiting for her in the lab. "Have you tried using your TARDIS key to calibrate it?" he asked. "Because you said there's only one universe with Time Lords, yeah? So at least if you use the TARDIS key, you'll end up in the right universe. After that, we can mess with coordinates and figure out how to direct it."

The sensation of her key, warm against her chest, banished some of Rose's discouragement, and she smiled the first genuine smile in months. "That's a brilliant idea, Mickey," she enthused.

He grinned at her. "Not so bad for Mickey the Idiot, eh?"

"He'll have to give you a new nickname now."

It took time to recalibrate the cannon. It seemed to lock onto the universe without much difficulty, but they couldn't get the timing right. She jumped from Shakespeare's London to New York in the 1930s to London in her own time to rural England on the eve of World War I. Every time, the Doctor had just left.

"Would it really be that difficult to get me there _before_ he leaves?" she growled to her dimension cannon after returning from London in the 1960s.

She learned to be careful about what she said when she landed. It wasn't a fear of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time—her time senses told her when to hold her tongue. But not everyone who met the Doctor loved the Doctor, and after nearly getting arrested once she decided to be more cautious.

This went on for eight months, and though Rose didn't want to say it, she was losing hope again. Still, when another set of coordinates came in, she took the cannon from Mickey and let him offer a few last minute reminders.

"We've managed to almost eliminate the cool down period," he said. "The cannon is set for an auto recall after five minutes. If we don't hear from you before then, you'll be pulled back here." He handed her the comms device.

"I know you want to see him, but don't forget there's a reason you're doing this. The stars are going out, and we need him to help us figure out what's happening."

Rose nodded curtly. "I'm aware that the fate of the universe is slightly more important than seeing the Doctor again."

Mickey's expression softened. "Only slightly," he said. "Now go, Agent Tyler."

She grinned and hit the button.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor watched, dumbfounded, as Donna opened the boot of her car and started pulling out suitcases. "I packed ages ago, just in case. Because I thought, hot weather, cold weather, no weather. He goes anywhere. I've gotta be prepared."

She dropped one item into his arms. "You've got a, a hatbox." He wanted her to come, but Martha had fallen for him even though she'd known he wasn't available, and that had been horribly awkward.

But Donna didn't notice his hesitation. "Planet of the hats, I'm ready!"

Suddenly, the ache in his head that he'd managed to ignore for nearly three years disappeared. Donna kept talking, but her voice sounded like it was coming from a very long way off.

"Doctor?"

"What? Oh, yeah sure. Just… I'll be right back."

He shoved the hatbox back into Donna's hands and walked toward the street, his hearts pounding. The warm feeling grew stronger with every step, and finally, he dared to reach out for it. _Rose?_

 _Doctor! I'm here!_

"Doctor, what are you—" Donna asked as he ran down the alley, but he didn't stop to explain. He was running flat out now, using her side of the bond like a homing beacon.

Rose's elation poured over him, and he knew she was feeling the same thing. The thought, _Missed you,_ floated over the bond, but he didn't know who had thought it, or if they both had.

He whipped around a corner and caught a glimpse of familiar blonde hair two streets away. _I can see you!_ she said, and they both put on speed.

They were only fifty feet away from each other when her eyes widened and he heard her cursing. She stopped dead in the street and fumbled with something at her side, and he could feel her dread.

The Doctor put on speed, but when he was ten feet away from her, Rose disappeared. _I'm coming back,_ he heard over the bond, just before it tore again.

He tripped over his feet and dropped to his knees. Rose had been _here,_ he'd seen her and felt her, and then she'd left again. Sobs built up in his throat, and he moved to sit with his back against the building, pressing his fist against his mouth to hold them back.

The ache this time wasn't as bad as it had been before, and he _hated_ that, because it meant his mind had gotten used to not having Rose Tyler in it. He wanted the agony he'd felt when she'd left the first time, because it matched his grief.

The Doctor pulled his legs up and rested his elbows on his knees, hiding his face in his hands. The passers-by gave him a wide berth, and though he was vaguely aware he was breaking the British social contract to not show strong emotion in public, he didn't care.

After ten minutes, a pair of legs stopped in front of him. He looked up at Donna. "She was here," he explained brokenly.

Donna's mouth dropped open a little, and she sat down next to him. He didn't have to tell her who "she" was; Donna had met him right after he'd lost Rose, after all.

"What happened?" she asked softly.

"I don't… I don't know," he whispered, pushing the words past the lump in his throat. "We were both so… and then I could tell she was worried about something, and she messed with something at her side." He tipped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut. "Maybe the device she used to come back had an auto-recall on it, I don't know. But she was here, and now she's gone again."

Donna rested a soothing hand on his knee. "Let's get you back to the TARDIS, Spaceman."

"No. I can't leave yet."

"Why?"

"Always wait five and a half hours," he said, smiling painfully.

oOoOoOoOo

Donna sat with him, after getting a blanket from the TARDIS to make the concrete more comfortable. Five and a half hours came and went. The Doctor looked up at Donna. "A few more minutes?" he asked. "I know she'll try to come right back here."

"I'm sure she will, but we don't know anything about how that device thingy of hers works." Donna rubbed a hand over his arm to soften the blow. "Maybe it won't let her come back, or maybe it'll take her someplace else instead."

He looked at the spot where Rose had been standing on the pavement. "But how am I going to find her?" He jumped when he felt a smack on the back of his head. "Ow! What was that for?"

"For being a giant space dunce!" she exclaimed. "Look, I don't know where Rose is that she can't just ring and have you pick her up—"

The Doctor interrupted. "In a parallel world. And the walls are supposed to be closed… I've had scans running for three years, looking for a crack big enough to take the TARDIS through…"

They started walking back toward the TARDIS. The streets were almost empty now that the excitement of the Adipose had worn off, so they were able to move fairly quickly.

"Well maybe you should go back to the TARDIS, figure out how Rose managed to get back when you haven't, and then see if you can't figure out where she'll show up next."

The Doctor blinked. "That's… that's actually a really good idea."

"Oi! No need to sound so surprised," she exclaimed, but the Doctor ignored her.

"It's not just how she managed to get back into our world," he said, his mind now working a mile a minute. They turned the corner into the alleyway where the TARDIS was parked. "How did she land so close to where I was?" His pocket felt warm, and the Doctor reached in and pulled out his key, glowing brightly. "Oh. Oh, you brilliant girl!" he crowed, running up and unlocking the door. "Oh, you clever, clever girls."

The Doctor was peripherally aware of Donna stepping inside and closing the door behind her, but he was more concerned with getting them into the Vortex, so he could more easily run the scans he wanted.

"Are you talking about your ship or your girlfriend?" she asked as he flung the dematerialisation lever.

"Both of them!" he exclaimed, more exuberant than he'd been in three years. "Her TARDIS key, Donna! She calibrated her device to her TARDIS key, so it'll only go places the TARDIS is, or will be shortly. Or was recently I suppose, but that's just a depressing possibility, so let's not think about it."

"So you'll be spending a lot of time looking for Rose, I guess."

The Doctor looked up sharply. He'd come to know that dejected tone very well while travelling with Martha—he'd gotten very good at ignoring it too, but that wasn't the point.He looked at Donna for the first time—really looked at her. A hint of vulnerability lurked beneath her brash exterior, and he felt a sick feeling in his gut.

"Donna…"

"What?"

"Last time, with Martha, like I said, it, it got complicated. And that was partly my fault," he admitted for the first time.

Donna pressed her lips together, and her eyes sparkled. "Right. I'm stopping you right there, Spaceman. Because I think you're about to give me the, 'I'm only interested in a mate,' speech, and believe me, that's not necessary."

"It isn't?"

She snorted. "Even if I hadn't watched you spend the last six hours all tied up in knots over Rose, I still wouldn't be interested in you. I mean, you're just a long streak of nothing." She looked him up and down, then waved her hand dismissively. "You know, alien nothing."

The Doctor grinned. "Thank you, Donna Noble." She smiled back, and he said, "So, whole wide universe, where do you want to go?"

"Oh, I know exactly the place."

"Which is?"

"Two and a half miles that way."

The Doctor looked at her blankly. "Ah. We're actually in the Time Vortex right now. Two and a half miles… from where?"

She rolled her eyes and rattled off her address, and five minutes later, the Doctor smiled while she waved goodbye to her grandfather through the open door of the TARDIS.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose ran to the computer as soon as she reappeared back at Torchwood, feverishly typing in the information from her last jump.

"Whoa, what are you doing, babe?"

She looked up at Mickey. "He was there, Micks. The Doctor was right in front of me, and then… I forgot about the auto-recall and I couldn't…" Mickey laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she took a deep breath. "If I can just go right back to the exact same spot, I should be able to find him."

Mickey shook his head slowly. "First, there's no guarantee you'd hit the same place. Our accuracy is improving—obviously—but that kind of precision would be difficult. Second, you know the rules. You have to rest for 24 hours between jumps. If Pete knew I sent you right back out, without even a med exam, he'd have my hide."

"I don't care about any of that! An' it's not even for me… Mickey, he could see me, and then I just disappeared. You don't know what it's like to see the person who means the most to you in the entire universe vanish in front of your eyes."

"Right. And third, you know the recharging cycle on the cannon is still well over eight hours. Even if I wanted to break all the rules and send you straight back, I couldn't. So why don't you get yourself down to medical and let Owen check you out?"

Rose opened her mouth to protest, but Mickey held up his hand. "And once you're ready, the next jump can be back to the same space-time coordinates. Remember when the Doctor told us he could have the TARDIS back just 10 seconds after taking off? With time coordinates, you could take a week off and still get back to the same point."

Mickey's words proved to be prophetic. A new alien race attempted to infiltrate the Underground that evening, and Rose and her team were assigned to take care of it. And, as these things so often are, the situation was more complex than anyone realised, and she ended up spending over a week on a spaceship in orbit around the Earth, negotiating a treaty.

But finally, all her other duties were discharged and she was able to return to the lab. She had said her goodbyes to her family the night before, making sure to play with Tony and read him a bedtime story. He might not be old enough to ever remember having a big sister, but maybe there would be some sort of residual memory left behind.

She took the cannon from Mickey and closed her eyes. "This is it," she whispered, and hit the button.

As soon as she landed, she knew it was wrong. Oh, she was in the same place, but the street was completely deserted. And the Doctor… Rose reached as hard as she could, but all she got was the vaguest sense of his presence. She was in the right universe, but he wasn't here.

Mickey was waiting for her when she got back to Torchwood. One look at her, and he offered to come by her flat that night with alcohol.

"What happened?" he asked while they waited for the pizza.

Rose swirled the wine around in her glass and took a sip. "I was too late." Mickey made a sympathetic noise, and she tightened her grip on her glass. "I miss him so much, and just for a moment, he was there. I'm so tired and I was so close, but I'm still not there."

Her eyes were burning with unshed tears when she looked at Mickey again. "Do you think this will ever work?"

His answer was immediate and unequivocal. "Yes." When she silently implored him for more, he said, "If we were talking about anyone else, I'd say no. But I've seen what the two of you can do together. Now that he knows you're trying to come back, you know he'll be working from his end, trying to make it work."

Rose thought about the sheer joy she'd felt over the bond, and the way he'd ran toward her, full pelt, down a busy street. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right," she said, her spirits rising slightly. "Thanks for reminding me I'm not doing this alone."


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** Rose gets a respite from the discouraging pattern of jumps going nowhere, and the Doctor recovers a memory or two.

The morning after Pompeii, Donna appeared in the console room in her dressing gown, a cup of coffee in hand. "What are you doing at seven in the morning?"

"Recalibrating the chrono-scanners, buffering the navigational controls, and trying to puzzle out how Rose came back."

Donna rolled her eyes. "Didn't you sleep at all?"

"I don't need as much sleep as humans do, Donna. And if I work on finding a way to get Rose back while you sleep… well, that's a better use of my time."

"I've been meaning to ask—how did you know Rose was there, in London?"

The Doctor stiffened. "We're… we're telepathic. And we have a telepathic bond." Donna looked at him expectantly, and he sighed. "It's the way my people…" He rubbed at his chest, but the ache in his hearts didn't go away.

Donna's eyes widened. "Oh my god, she's your wife!"

The Doctor shook his head. "Fiancée actually," he corrected. "Although assuming she still wants it, I want to complete our bond as soon as she comes home. We've waited long enough."

She leaned against a coral strut. "Then let's get Rose home so you can have your alien wedding. What have you figured out then?"

"That's just the thing, I haven't." He shoved his hand through his hair. "I've had the TARDIS scan London for the two weeks before Rose appeared, and there wasn't a single hole in the walls."

A stray thought occurred to the Doctor. "But…" he said, quickly resetting the parameters of the scan. He tapped his fingers anxiously against the console and crowed in delight when the answer came back positive.

"What? What is it?"

"Well, I've been looking for a hole big enough for the TARDIS to pass through, but Rose is just traveling alone." He frowned. "I don't like the idea of her going through the Void and the Vortex without any protection," he muttered.

"Focus, Doctor," Donna said, snapping her fingers in his face. "What's this all mean?"

"Right. Sorry. Imagine you're in London, and you need to get across the Thames," he said, speaking rapidly. "If you're in a car, you're limited to the bridges that carry automobile traffic, but on foot, you could use the Jubilee Bridges or the Millennium Bridge."

Donna nodded slowly. "So Rose found the Millennium Bridge across this Void thingy?"

The Doctor beamed. "Exactly! And I've just told the TARDIS to look for other tiny fissures that correspond to places we'll be."

"Places we'll be?"

"Time ship, Donna. She exists outside of time, for the most part. Can see every place she's been and will be."

Donna crossed her arms. "But didn't you say something last Christmas about crossing personal timelines?"

The TARDIS hummed, and the Doctor scowled. "Yes, fine. But you can look for cracks and make sure you land us near one."

In response, the scanner dinged. The Doctor whirled around the console to see what results had come up. "Brion. But that's… I was there almost two hundred years ago."

As soon as he said the words, the memory flooded his mind. He waited until he'd seen it all, from the moment Rose walked through the door until he led her to the library so they could talk, and then he looked at Donna with his jaw set.

"Donna, I need you to do something for me."

The ginger woman blinked, clearly taken aback by his sudden mood swing. "What?"

"Slap me."

"What?!"

He snorted. "Oh, trust me—I deserve it. And Rose thought I was rude in this body!"

"Would it kill you to talk so us non-Martians can understand what you mean? This body?"

The Doctor's mind was still focused on what he'd said to Rose, all those years ago. "Are you going to slap me?"

"Not until you explain what you did that deserves it."

He scrubbed his hands over his face. "Well, putting it as simply as possible, Rose just found me, in her timeline. For me, it was hundreds of years ago, and I was…" The Doctor cringed when he remembered the look on her face. "I was horribly insulting."

"No surprise there," Donna said drily. "What's 'this body' mean then?"

"Right." He leaned against the console and crossed his arms over his chest. "So… Time Lords have this little trick, a way of cheating death. It's called regeneration. We change every cell in our bodies and are reborn, literally, as new people. Everything inside is the same, but the outside is different."

"Okay." Donna took a sip of her coffee, then looked up at the Doctor. "So Rose met you, and even though you looked different than you do now, she knew who you were, and somehow you still managed to be rude to this woman who's been travelling across the universe to get back to you?"

He tugged on his ear and felt the back of his neck grow warm. "Yes."

Donna shook her head. "I won't get in the way of this lovers' tiff," she said as she walked toward the corridor leading to her room. "I want to see what Rose has to say when she gets back."

oOoOoOoOo

Rose stumbled a little as she came out of the Void, only barely putting her hands out in time to keep from hitting her head on the ground. The stinging in her palms distracted her, so it took a moment for her to realise her TARDIS key was warm against her chest.

She pulled it out and looked at the glowing key. If that wasn't proof she was close, the ache in her mind had eased too. Rose closed her eyes and focused on the bond to get a sense of where he was in relation to herself. After a moment, she smiled and started jogging down the hill. He was close, probably somewhere in the trees up ahead.

The first sight of the familiar blue box brought tears to her eyes. She was finally home. Rose sped up to a run and whipped the key out from around her neck. It fitted easily in the lock, and she pushed the door open.

She'd only taken one step inside when she realised something wasn't right. The TARDIS hummed in welcome, but this looked nothing like the console room she was familiar with. Hardwood floors instead of metal grating, bookshelves lining the walls instead of exposed coral, comfortable chairs scattered around the room… if it weren't for the console and time rotor dominating the centre of the room, she wouldn't have known she was inside the TARDIS at all.

And the Doctor sitting in the armchair reading looked nothing like her Doctor, attractive as his dark curls and blue eyes were.

The Doctor set his book aside and stood up. "I'm sorry; do I know you?"

Rose tried to smile, but it ended up more like a weary grimace. "Not yet," she answered truthfully. The TARDIS key had worked, but it had brought her to the Doctor too early in his timeline.

Her side of the bond clamoured inside her head, and the Doctor's eyes widened. Rose remembered what her Doctor had told her on Barcelona—bonding with a Time Lord bonded you to all their regenerations, past and present, though the bond would be dormant and unnoticed in past regenerations. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the urge to touch his mind, but it had been so long, and he was right there…

She managed to resist reaching for him telepathically, but the TARDIS created the empathic connection they'd had for months before they'd bonded. His wary curiosity might not have been the reaction she'd dreamed he'd have when she found him, but feeling anything from him was welcome. Rose looked at her bond mate, unfamiliar but still completely hers, and her heart ached with how much she loved him.

"What's wrong?" Rose asked when the Doctor took a step back from her.

He busied himself with dials on the console, ones Rose knew very well did nothing when the TARDIS wasn't in the Vortex.

"Nothing's wrong."

Rose sucked in a breath and swallowed down the tears that threatened.

The Doctor's arms dropped to his sides. "Rose, I—"

She could feel his remorse, but that didn't ease the sting of the insult. "You lied to me," she whispered.

A shadow crossed his face. "Well I'm sorry if the sudden appearance of a human woman I apparently form a bond with in the future has made me forget social niceties," he bit out.

Rose narrowed her eyes at him. "You know, you keep talking about being rude and not ginger like it's a new thing, but I'm starting to think the rudeness is a constant."

"I'm still not ginger?"

"Not the point, Doctor!"

"Ah, yes." He shrugged his shoulders and smiled apologetically. "I apologise—again—for my unpardonable rudeness. I just can't imagine what would have possessed me to…"

"To bond with a human who will just wither and die?" Rose said tartly. It had taken her two years to break through her Doctor's reticence; she had little patience to listen to it again.

"I don't know if I would have put it quite that bluntly, though it seems a future version of myself will, but yes."

Rose sighed. "Not exactly human, Doctor," she said wearily.

"Of course you are. A telepathic human, which I admit is a bit of a rarity, but—"

The dimension cannon beeped. Rose hesitated only a moment before deciding to cancel the auto-recall. She'd be able to jump back herself later. This might not be her Doctor or her TARDIS, but the presence in her head was just as welcome.

"Control, this is Tyler. I've found something interesting, so I'm going to investigate a bit. I'll jump back in one hour."

"Copy that, Agent Tyler. You have one hour." The cannon beeped again, and she knew they'd reset the auto-recall.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked curiously.

"My ride home," she told him. "I just cancelled the pick up and told them I'd find my own way back."

A furrow appeared in the Doctor's forehead. "Why are you here, and not with my future self?"

"Ah, you're finally asking the important questions," Rose teased. She bit her lip; there was only so much she could tell him. "We were… separated," she said. "A breach in the Void opened, an' we had to close it. Only I ended up on the wrong side."

She felt his curiosity and knew he was wondering why he hadn't just come across to pick her up. Rose shook her head slightly, and he nodded and dropped the issue, though she suspected he would have pressed for details if there hadn't been something else he was more interested in.

"What do you mean by 'not exactly human?'" he asked.

Rose pinched her lips together. "Look, I don't really want to spend the next hour being scanned and questioned. Can you just… can I show you?"

The Doctor looked at her warily, then nodded. "I obviously trust you with my life in the future; I don't see why I shouldn't now."

Rose blinked back tears as she stepped in front of the Doctor and placed her fingers on his temple. It was simple to call up the memory of what they'd discovered about her altered physiology and share it with him. She felt his disbelief and confusion before she pulled her hand away and looked at him.

"See, not exactly," she said quietly. "I still register as human—"

"Unless the scanner is temporally aligned," he said breathlessly. "Rose Tyler, you are… amazing."

A thought occurred to Rose, and she looked at him through narrowed eyes. "How do you know my name?"

"The same way you knew mine." He tapped the side of his head. "You walked into a TARDIS that wasn't yours and saw a man you'd never met, yet you automatically knew it was me."

"Well, who else would wear a cravat and a velvet coat?" Rose teased.

The Doctor looked at the unique woman he shared a bond with. She was smiling and teasing him, but underneath it, he sensed her sadness.

"You have fifty minutes before you need to go. Would you like to sit down somewhere and talk?"

To his surprise, she bit her lip. "Would you… I just remembered. My first Doctor didn't know me when we met. Am I messing up my entire timeline?"

The Doctor smiled. "If I were anyone else, you would be. But, as it happens, I am not anyone else. I'll hide the memory after you're gone. So, would you like to sit down somewhere?"

She nodded, and he led her to the library. Rose brushed her fingers against the walls along the way, and the Doctor felt the TARDIS hum in pleasure at the contact.

"She loves you," he commented softly.

"And I love her."

The words were simple, but the Doctor felt something more behind them, a connection even he didn't have with his ship. At some point in the future, this amazing, baffling woman would merge with the TARDIS so completely they would become one.

"Bad Wolf," he whispered.

Rose froze with her hand on the door to the library. "What did you say?"

"You will look into the heart of the TARDIS and merge with her. Together, you will be… a goddess. A goddess of Time with one goal."

"To keep you safe, my Doctor," she said softly.

The Doctor no longer wondered why his future self would choose to bond with this woman who loved him so completely. Instead, he was starting to wonder how he could ever bring himself to let her go when her time was up.

That dangerous thought in mind, he chose the safest topic he could think of once they were sitting down. "Why didn't you let your team in the parallel world bring you home? Clearly, I'm not the Doctor you expected."

Rose bit her lip. "I've been in Pete's World for over three years," she said quietly. "You're not the version of you that I know, but… you, and the TARDIS… It's just so lonely," she said finally, swallowing back tears.

The Doctor sighed. "In your head," he completed, and she nodded. "And then I immediately insulted you in the worst manner possible."

She offered a hint of a smile. "Well, it wasn't the best first impression, but luckily I already know you."

"You know me very well, Rose Tyler, if seeing your lover with a different face doesn't even throw you."

Rose rolled her eyes. "One," she said, holding up a finger, "you explained to me after we bonded that I'm bonded to all versions of you, past and present. And two, my introduction to regeneration was watching you change right in front of me, without any warning."

The Doctor winced. "That wasn't well done of me, I suppose."

"Not really, no," she agreed drily. "But we were tossed into danger right away, and once I saw you win a sword fight for the safety of the planet, my doubts were gone."

"How long has it been since we were separated?"

Rose's hands clenched into fists. "Three years, two months, eight days, 12 hours, and 47 minutes," she said mechanically.

The pain rolling off her triggered a protective instinct he hadn't thought he would one day possess, and the Doctor pulled his bond mate into his lap. _I'm sorry, darling,_ he whispered in her mind as he brushed a soft kiss against her temple.

Rose settled into his arms and his mind, and he felt her contentment when she realised his telepathic signature was exactly what she was used to. Her pink and gold presence shone in his head, and he wondered what he felt like to her. No sooner had he wondered then the word, "home," floated through her mind.

oOoOoOoOo

When forty of her fifty minutes had passed, the Doctor reluctantly loosened his grip around Rose's waist. "It's almost time for you to go," he said quietly.

She played with his cravat. "I wish I didn't have to."

"You know you don't really mean that, Rose. Somewhere, there's a version of me who is missing you desperately. A me who shares all your secrets and knows your past."

She sighed and stood up. "I know. And I really do want to see that you again, so when you remember this, don't go being jealous of yourself, or worry I'll find some other version of you to live with."

The Doctor tried to look affronted she would think such things, but Rose cocked her head and crossed her arms over her chest.

Warmth suffused through him at that simple indication of how well she knew him, and he smiled. "Oh, all right. I suppose I can always leave myself a reminder to not be jealous."

They walked back to the console room, with their hands twined between them. Rose's pack and dimension cannon were still sitting by the door, where she'd left them.

He saw a glimmer of intent in Rose's eyes just before she stretched up and brushed her lips against his. His first thought was to pull back, to remind her that he wasn't the Doctor she knew. But the scent of her human pheromones mixing with time pulled at his memory, and he realised he _was_ the Doctor she knew.

The Doctor placed his right hand on her waist and pulled her close. Rose increased the pressure of her lips against his, and he slowly moved with her, returning the almost chaste kiss.

When she licked at his lips, he opened them obligingly, and suddenly the kiss wasn't chaste at all. Instead, it was tongues meeting, teeth biting, lips sucking and tugging. The Doctor groaned in disappointment when Rose pulled her lips away from his, but it quickly became a groan of pleasure when she latched onto a spot on his jaw near his ear.

 _So erogenous zones stay the same from one regeneration to the next,_ Rose told him teasingly. _That's good to know._

The Doctor tilted his head to give her better access and gasped when she rewarded him by scraping her teeth over the spot. "Don't leave a mark," he said in a rough voice. She pulled back and looked at him, and he said, "If I look in a mirror and see a love bite, I won't rest until I know how I got it—memory block or no." He felt her understanding, and she moved away from the spot with a final lick.

The same restriction didn't apply to him, he realised, and he pressed Rose against the doors for support, then trailed kisses along her jaw and throat, waiting until he found the right spot. _Yes,_ she sighed when he reached the hollow of her throat, and he smiled before licking it.

Rose held onto him with one arm around his shoulders and sank the other hand into his hair, holding him in place. The Doctor nibbled and sucked at her sensitive skin until she was moaning and shifting restlessly against him. The movement teased him, and he ground into her, loving the way her breath hitched when his erection provided friction in just the right place. Her hands moved down to squeeze his arse and pull him closer, and he hissed out a breath.

 _Rose…_ He needed her with a desperation that surprised him. He'd never felt this level of sexual desire before. He'd _loved_ Charley, but he hadn't _wanted_ her like this. A distant part of his mind was aware that was the bond at work, that he was responding in part to the arousal he felt building in her, but he soon abandoned the analysis and just felt.

The blue leather jacket she wore suited her, but right now, it was in his way. He unzipped it, then slipped his hand under her shirt until he was cupping her breast. Rose gasped and arched against him, and he grinned smugly.

 _My Doctor,_ she moaned over their bond, and her possessive tone affected him as much as her touch.

 _Yours,_ he promised. _Always yours._

She wrapped a leg around his waist and rocked against him, making them both gasp at the increased friction. The Doctor grabbed her leg and moved against her more purposefully, and soon they were both breathing heavily as the pleasure zipped between them.

His control was utterly gone, he realised. As soon as they could both get their clothes off, he was going to shag her against the door.

Rose caught that thought and groaned her approval. Her hands slid under his coat, but before she could push it off, the alarm on her device went off.

The Doctor focused on the woman in his arms, determined to make her ignore the time and just stay with him for a few more minutes. But Rose dropped her leg back down to the floor, and he could feel the shift in her emotions as she tried to rein in her desire and focus on her responsibilities.

He moved his lips to her ear and whispered, "Stay just a little while longer," before taking her earlobe into his mouth and sucking on it.

He felt her waver, heard her whimper, but she still pulled back. "I can't," she told him, and he could hear the regret in those words. "The longer I stay, the harder it will be to leave. And you were right—the you I'm linear with is out there, waiting for me."

The Doctor reluctantly took half a step back and allowed Rose to adjust her shirt.

"Besides, when I get back to you for good, we can have a proper reunion shag." She smiled at him with her tongue peeking out between her teeth, and it took every bit of his restraint to not suck that tongue into his mouth.

Instead, he moved back two full steps and watched her zip her jacket back up and pick her dimension cannon up from the floor. "A proper reunion shag it is, Rose Tyler. Don't think I'll forget."

"Oh, I'm counting on it." She winked at him, then reached for the door.

Rose froze with her hand on the door, and when she looked back at him, her eyes shone with sudden hope. "Why didn't I think? Could you take me to him?"

The Doctor thought that was a brilliant idea, but the TARDIS did not. She hummed disapprovingly at them, and Rose slumped.

"But why not?" she whispered.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "If I had to guess, I would say there's something still in your linear Doctor's future that would be very dangerous for you, or—perhaps—a moment when your return will be more precious than it would be at any other time."

The TARDIS hummed again, in agreement this time, and Rose sighed. "Well then, I guess I'll be on my way."

They stared at each other for a moment. The Doctor wanted to hug her, to offer some sort of consolation for the difficult path he knew she still had to tread, but his restraint was more tenuous than he liked.

Rose looked at him, and he swore for a moment that he saw his future in her eyes. "I love you, Doctor," she told him, letting him hear the words for the first time, in his timeline. "I'm going to get back to you, and we're going to have our forever."

"I believe you, darling," he told her softly.

She smiled at him one last time, then opened the door and slipped out of the TARDIS.

The Doctor stared at the place where she'd been standing for several minutes. He knew when she left the planet, could feel the bond shiver and then return to its dormant state. He wondered idly how her linear Doctor could stand the feeling of not having her with him. At least for him, since the bond was still in his future, he didn't feel the tearing feeling he assumed his future self had when he'd lost her.

Once she was gone, he sat back down in his chair and began slowly hiding his memories away. He started to set the trigger as Rose's return, but the TARDIS hummed her disagreement. He listened for a moment, then nodded. _Very well. I'll let you unlock them when you know the time is right._

oOoOoOoOo

After Donna went to her room to get dressed, the Doctor felt the distinctive shift in his mind that indicated memories were being restored. He furrowed his brow for a moment, then his eyes fluttered closed and he sat down on the jump seat. He hadn't just seen Rose and talked to her when she'd found his eighth self; he'd snogged her with more passion than he'd ever felt until that moment.

Every kiss and caress replayed in his memory, and he bit back a groan when he remembered the way it had felt when she sucked on that sensitive spot on his jaw. And despite his lack of experience, he hadn't been an idle participant; the Doctor did groan when he remembered the graceful curve of her neck as she'd arched back to give him access to the hollow of her throat.

Each memory relived felt like a ghostly caress, a sensation remembered without the touch. The Doctor shifted on the jump seat, his trousers tightening uncomfortably as the touches became more passionate.

His eyes widened as the memory continued to unfold. He'd nearly shagged her against the door—would have, if her blasted dimension cannon hadn't gone off at the worst moment. Part of him thought he should feel jealous that Rose had been so attracted to not-him on such a short acquaintance, but in truth, it assuaged a tiny misgiving he'd had. He desperately needed Rose to be attracted to him in all his regenerations, and it seemed like she would be.

The Doctor sighed when the memory ended and gave himself a moment to look forward to the promised reunion shag, before redirecting the blood flow so Donna wouldn't come into the console room and catch him with an erection.

That taken care of, he glared at the time rotor. _Why couldn't he just bring Rose here? Do you want both of us to be miserable?_

His ship made it clear what she thought of that accusation, and he rubbed at his face. _I know, I know. But it's been so long._ Her hum softened, but she remained firm that now was not the right time for Rose to come home.

The Doctor blew out a breath, then jumped up and funnelled the energy still lingering into his body into setting the coordinates for their next trip. Donna would enjoy the 1920s. Maybe they could meet Agatha Christie!


	4. Chapter 4

**AN:** I've made several changes to the story in the Library. It's amazing what you can do with this story when you're not trying to give the Doctor a woman he's fated to fall in love with.

The Library. Vashta Nerada. An archaeologist who greeted him like she'd known him her entire life. And now, Donna was gone. Standing in the Library near the edge of the shadows, the Doctor felt his tenuous control of his emotions reaching a breaking point.

He clenched his jaw and dedicated half his brain to figuring out how to find Donna and save the surviving members of the Lux expedition, while using the other half to shamelessly eavesdrop on Professor Melody Pond as she told her associates about him.

 _There's no way she's a future companion,_ he thought. _I'd never travel with an archaeologist._

"He doesn't act like he trusts you," Anita said astutely.

Professor Pond tucked a strand of straight, brown hair back behind her ear. "Yeah, there's a tiny problem. He hasn't met me yet."

The Doctor heard her footsteps coming toward him, but he was more focused on getting the sonic screwdriver to work. It seemed like something was interfering with it, but… He held it up to his ear and listened. _Yep. Definitely interference._

"What's wrong with it?" Professor Pond asked.

The Doctor tapped the screwdriver lightly and tried it again. "There's a signal coming from somewhere, interfering with it."

"Then use the red settings."

His gaze flicked over to her, then he went back to fiddling with his sonic. "It doesn't have a red setting."

"Well, use the dampers," she said as she took her gloves off.

"It doesn't _have_ dampers." _Who is this woman and why does she think she knows my sonic screwdriver better than I do?_

She pulled the sonic screwdriver she'd used earlier out of her pocket. "Hmmm. I guess mine is better," she said.

The Doctor snatched it from her hands and stood up. "So, some time in the future, I just give you my screwdriver."

She snatched it back. "No. At some point in the future, you give me _my own_ screwdriver."

"Why would I do that?"

"Present when I graduated from uni," she said breezily.

"Professor Pond, I could on one hand the number of people I've given a sonic device to. I didn't even give one to—" He clamped his mouth shut before he mentioned Rose. If Melody Pond was a fraud, as he suspected, it wouldn't do to give her any more personal information to use against him.

Melody shook her head. "Doctor, one day I'm going to be someone that you trust completely, but I can't wait for you to find that out. So I'm going to prove it to you."

The Doctor watched warily as this strange woman leaned in to put her mouth by his ear. Then his hearts stopped when he heard two words:

"Bad Wolf."

Melody Pond dropped back to the floor, but the Doctor ignored her, focused on those two words that always meant Rose was coming back to him. It had been six months since he'd seen her in London, and when the TARDIS still hadn't found another crack, he'd almost given up.

"Are we good?"

He stared at her without really seeing her.

"Doctor, are we good?" she repeated, in the tone you'd use to bring someone out of shock.

The Doctor swallowed. "Yeah, we're good," he told her. _Bad Wolf… we're more than good if Rose is coming back._

She had a knowing smile on her face. "Good."

oOoOoOoOo

Escaping from the Vashta Nerada that had taken over the bodies of Dave and Other Dave had been a close call, but the Doctor managed to pull himself back up into the Library and find the few remaining members of his party. When he found them, Melody was talking in a soft, wistful voice.

"You know when you see a photograph of someone you know, but it's from years before you knew them. And it's like… they're not quite finished. They're not done yet. Well, yes, the Doctor's here. He came when I called, just like he always does."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and filed that piece of information away.

"But not _my_ Doctor," she continued. "Now my Doctor, I've seen whole armies turn and run away. And he'd just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor and Rose Tyler in the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere."

His hearts leapt when she said Rose's name, and he knew he had to stop her before she gave anything else away. "Spoilers. Nobody can open a TARDIS by snapping their fingers," he said, focusing on the least important thing she'd said. "It doesn't work like that."

When Melody turned around, he could tell by the stricken look on her face that she knew what else he'd heard. "Doctor…"

He waved away her concern. "That's only a minor spoiler, Melody. I know she's trying to get back; I saw her in London six months ago for just a few minutes."

The Doctor glanced around the room and saw something that drove all other thoughts from his mind: Anita had two shadows. "How are you doing?" he asked her, trying not to let on that unless he could find a way out, her time was limited.

"Where's Other Dave?" Melody asked.

"Not coming," he said, keeping his eyes fixed on Anita. "Sorry."

"Well, if they've taken him, why haven't they gotten me yet?" Anita asked.

The Doctor winced; keeping her in the dark was keeping her calm, but it still seemed cruel. "I don't know. Maybe tinting your visor's making a difference."

"It's making a difference all right. No one's ever going to see my face again."

"Can I get you anything?" he asked, ignoring that last statement.

"An old age would be nice," she said, and he could picture her wry smile. "Anything you can do?"

The Doctor nodded slowly and turned around. "I'm all over it."

"Doctor." He turned back to her. "When we first met you, you didn't trust Professor Pond. And then she whispered something in your ear, and you did. My life so far. I could do with a word like that. What did she say? Give a dead girl a break. Your secrets are safe with me."

"Safe." All thoughts of what Melody had said were relegated to a small section of his mind while he focused on the revelation he'd just had.

"What?" Anita asked.

"Safe," the Doctor repeated. "You don't say saved. Nobody says saved. You say safe." He whirled around to Lux and Melody. "The data fragment! What did it say?"

"Four thousand and twenty-two people saved. No survivors," Lux said.

"Doctor?" Melody asked hopefully.

The Doctor crossed the room slowly while his brain quickly worked out what had actually happened that day at the Library. "Nobody says saved. Nutters say saved. You say safe." He spun around, gesturing wildly. "You see, it didn't mean safe. It meant, it literally meant, saved!"

Melody and Mr. Lux looked at him blankly. "Here, I'll show you." He ran to the terminal and pulled up the library archive file. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it was obvious. He rocked back on his heels and gestured at the screen as he explained. "See, there it is, right there. A hundred years ago, massive power surge. All the teleports going at once. Soon as the Vashta Nerada hit their hatching cycle, they attack. Someone hits the alarm. The computer tries to teleport everyone out."

Melody peered at the screen. "It tried to teleport four thousand twenty-two people?"

The Doctor nodded. "It succeeded. Pulled them all out, but then what? Nowhere to send them. Nowhere safe in the whole library. Vashta Nerada growing in every shadow. Four thousand and twenty-two people all beamed up and nowhere to go." He twirled his finger in the air. "They're stuck in the system, waiting to be sent, like emails. So what's a computer to do? What does a computer always do?"

"It saved them," Melody breathed out, eyes wide in relieved comprehension.

He shoved the books on the nearby table aside and pulled a marker from his pocket. "The Library," he said, drawing a large circle right on the table. "A whole world of books, and right at the core," he added another circle inside the smaller circle, "the biggest hard drive in history. The index to everything ever written, backup copies of every single book. The computer saved four thousand and twenty-two people the only way a computer can. It saved them to the hard drive."

They barely had time for the truth to sink in before red lights and an alarm went off.

"What is it?" Lux asked. "What's wrong?"

"Auto destruct enabled in twenty minutes," a recorded voice announced.

They all looked back at the computer terminal, which was flashing two messages: one, the countdown to the auto destruct, and the other, a warning of maximum erasure.

"What's maximum erasure?" Melody asked.

The Doctor stared at the monitor, his mind already trying to find a way around this wrinkle. "In twenty minutes, this planet's going to crack like an egg."

"No," Lux burst out. "No, it's all right. The Doctor Moon will stop it. It's programmed to protect Cal."

As soon as those words left his mouth, the monitor went blank. "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor yelled. He pulled the terminal away from the wall, hoping he use the sonic to turn it back on.

A different automated voice killed that thought. "All library systems are permanently offline. Sorry for any inconvenience. Shortly—"

Mr. Lux hollered over the warnings. "We need to stop this. We've got to save Cal."

That was the second time he'd mentioned Cal. "What is it?" the Doctor asked. "What is Cal?"

There was a resigned set to Lux's shoulders, and the Doctor had a feeling he was about to find out what the man had been so determined to protect. "We need to get to the main computer. I'll show you."

The Doctor's eyebrows rose. "It's at the core of the planet."

Melody smirked and pulled out her screwdriver. "Well, then. Let's go." She ran to the middle of the room and pointed it at the library logo. The large compass rose opened and a blue stream of light flowed up. "Gravity platform," she said simply.

The Doctor put his screwdriver back in his pocket and joined her. "I bet I like you," he said, admiring her cleverness.

She grinned. "Oh, you do."

The stepped onto the gravity platform and called for Anita. When they were all on board, Melody activated the command to transport them to the centre of the planet.

They had fifteen minutes left in the auto destruct countdown when they reached the data core. The Doctor ran in the direction of an orangish light, and soon he was staring in awe at a massive ball of energy. "The data core. Over four thousand living minds trapped inside it."

"Yeah, well, they won't be living much longer," Melody pointed out bluntly. "We're running out of time."

The Doctor bit back the retort on the tip of his tongue—Honestly, did she think he didn't know, down to the second, exactly how much time they had left?—and darted around the room, looking for a terminal. He'd barely begun his attempt to get it to work when he was interrupted by the plaintive call of a young girl.

"Help me. Please, help me."

They all looked around for the source of the voice, save Anita who could only ask. "What's that?"

"Was that a child?" Melody asked.

The Doctor was still working with the terminal, but he couldn't get it to wake up. "The computer's in sleep mode." He tapped at the keyboard, but nothing worked. "I can't wake it up. I'm trying."

Then he noticed something happening. Every time he hit a key, the screensaver on the terminal pulsed. It was almost like it was integrating everything he did into its reality, but how could that be?

Melody saw it too. "Doctor, these readings."

"I know. You'd think it was dreaming."

"It is dreaming," Mr. Lux said as he pulled off his gloves, "of a normal life, and a lovely dad, and of every book ever written."

"Computers don't dream," Anita pointed out.

"Help me. Please help me," the girl continued to beg.

"No, but little girls do." Mr. Lux pulled a lever in the control panel and a door opened on the opposite side of the room.

The group ran into a room filled with computer processors and terminals, and the Doctor watched in astonishment as a courtesy node turned around to reveal the face of the same little girl they'd seen on the monitor upstairs.

"Please help me. Please help me."

"Oh, my God," Melody whispered.

"It's the little girl," Anita said. "The girl we saw in the computer."

"She's not in the computer," Mr. Lux said quietly. "In a way, she is the computer. The main command node. This is Cal."

And there it was, the secret he was trying to protect. The Doctor looked at him in disgust. "Cal is a child? A child hooked up to a mainframe? Why didn't you tell me this? I needed to know this!"

"Because she's family!" Mr. Lux shouted. His voice softened as he explained. "CAL. Charlotte Abigail Lux. My grandfather's youngest daughter. She was dying, so he built her a library and put her living mind inside, with a moon to watch over her, and all of human history to pass the time. Any era to live in, any book to read. She loved books more than anything, and he gave her them all. He asked only that she be left in peace. A secret, not a freak show."

The Doctor looked at command node CAL. "So you weren't protecting a patent, you were protecting her."

Mr. Lux walked up to her and touched her face lightly. "This is only half a life, of course. But it's forever."

"And then the shadows came," the Doctor said, the pieces of the story falling into place.

"The shadows," CAL said, "I have to… I have to save. Have to save."

"And she saved them." The Doctor stared up, toward the planet's surface. "She saved everyone in the library. Folded them into her dreams and kept them safe."

"Then why didn't she tell us?" Anita asked.

The Doctor looked over at her and his hearts dropped when he saw only one shadow. _Oh, Anita._

But this wasn't the moment to confront the swarm pretending to be the young archaeologist. "Because she's forgotten," he explained. "She's got over four thousand living minds chatting away inside her head. It must be like being, well, me," he concluded, without any modesty.

"So what do we do?" Melody asked matter-of-factly.

There were only ten minutes left on the countdown, and that wasn't enough time to think of a clever plan. "Easy!" He ran back to the terminal and opened a command line. "We beam all the people out of the data core. The computer will reset and stop the countdown." The information he was getting from the computer wasn't promising. "Difficult. Charlotte doesn't have enough memory space left to make the transfer." He ran his hands through his hair, not liking the obvious answer to that. "Easy!" He whirled around and yanked a panel open so he could pull the wires out. "I'll hook myself up to the computer. She can borrow my memory space."

Melody grabbed his shoulder and tried to pull him away. "Difficult. It'll kill you stone dead."

He kept working on the wires. "Yeah, it's easy to criticise."

"It'll burn out both your hearts and don't think you'll regenerate."

The Doctor's eyebrows flew up to his hairline. Whoever Melody Pond was, she clearly knew him very, very well. He stepped back from the wiring and looked at her. "Do you have an alternative in mind?"

She looked at her employer first. "Mr. Lux, go back to the surface. If we do this right, you'll soon have four thousand people who need to be sent home."

After he left, she turned to the Doctor. "As for having a better idea—yes, I do." She pulled off the gloves to her suit. "Go get the TARDIS while I get everything ready to wire into her."

The Doctor gawped at her. "That is… you're… why didn't I think of that?"

"Maybe because you're a daft idiot with a habit of choosing wildly dangerous plans," Melody said sweetly.

"Oh, now I know you know Rose," the Doctor griped. He glanced at the panel. "And you know how to do this?"

"You taught me yourself. Said it would come in handy someday—I guess someday is today." She looked at him pointedly. "But none of my fancy computer and electronic skills will matter if you don't get the TARDIS here in time."

The Doctor started for the gravity platform, but Anita's voice stopped him. "What about the Vashta Nerada?"

"Melody, keep working." She glanced at him, then Anita's single shadow, and nodded slightly.

"These are their forests." The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. "We're going to seal Charlotte inside her little world, take everybody else away. The shadows can swarm to their hearts' content."

"So you think they're just going to let us go?"

The Doctor heard the condescension in their voice and set his jaw. "Best offer they're going to get."

The Vashta Nerada tilted Anita's helmet slightly. "You're going to make 'em an offer?"

Melody's tall, willowy figure moved gracefully around the room, opening panels and using the terminals to access CAL's memories while the Doctor dealt with the Vashta Nerada. He spared a moment for the fleeting thought that he would evidently teach her very well, then he made his offer.

"They'd better take it, because right now, I'm finding it very hard to make any kind of offer at all." He looked them up and down, barely restraining his temper. "You know what? I really liked Anita. She was brave, even when she was crying. And she never gave in. And you ate her." The Doctor pointed the screwdriver at the visor of her helmet, and only a skull was visible. "But I'm going to let that pass, just as long as you let them pass."

The voice deepened, gaining an dangerous edge Anita had never used. "How long have you known?"

He walked past Melody to look Anita's skull in the face. "I counted the shadows. You only have one now." Anita's neural relay flashed. "She's nearly gone. Be kind."

"These are our forests," they said coldly. "We are not kind."

"I'm giving you back your forests, but you are giving me them. You are letting them go." The Doctor turned away from the swarm to go back to the gravity platform. A clock was ticking down in the Doctor's mind, and he willed the Vashta Nerada to accept his offer quickly.

"These are our forests. They are our meat."

The threat was obvious. The Doctor spun back around and drew in a sharp breath when he saw the shadow stretching out toward Melody. "Don't play games with me," he warned. "You just killed someone I liked. That is not a safe place to stand." He remembered what Melody had said about armies turning and running away, rather than facing him. "I'm the Doctor, and you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."

The pause while they assimilated the information surrounding them was interminable, then the shadows receded. "You have one day," they told him.

As soon as the spacesuit collapsed, the Doctor ran for the gravity platform. "I'll be back before you even notice I'm gone, Melody!" he shouted as he ascended back to the main level of the Library.

The Doctor marked the time when he reached the reading room; those were the coordinates he'd navigate the TARDIS back to. The Library was still bathed in shadows, but he had to trust they were the natural shadows that occurred in a dimly lit room.

The TARDIS hummed encouragingly when he ran inside and tossed his coat over the strut. "Are you ready to save four thousand and twenty-two people, old girl? I can't do it without you."

He took them into the vortex to give himself extra time to get things ready on his end. The TARDIS helped as much as she could, letting him access the memory of her internal computer without fighting. Once that was accomplished, he dug around in the storage cupboards until he found the cables he needed and hooked them up to the console, ready to be wired into the Library's mainframe.

Then he carefully—very carefully—set the coordinates for his return to the Library. _Help me out, Dear,_ he asked his ship, then pulled the lever.

Melody barely looked up from what she was doing when he stepped out of the TARDIS, cables in tow. "How long did it take you?" she asked.

"About twenty minutes," he told her, not bothering to ask how she knew he'd been gone longer than the thirty seconds it had been since he'd left her side.

They worked side by side in silence, accessing the memory boards of the Library's mainframe and wiring the necessary components together. The Doctor discovered an unexpected advantage of having taught Melody himself—she knew exactly how he worked, and knew how to complement that.

"I'm starting to think I should go into the future and train all my companions before I meet them," he said as he pulled the connection from the TARDIS over to the Library's motherboard.

Melody laughed. "Oh, I'm not a companion." She brought the cable they'd spliced together over to the motherboard.

"Who are you then?" the Doctor asked as she expertly spliced it in.

Her eyes danced. "Spoilers, Doctor." She bit her lip and bent over her work. "I'm getting everything finished except the last connector. I'll do that at the end of the countdown," she explained. "There'll be a blip in the command flow. That way it should improve our chances of a clean download."

She spliced one last set of wires together as the computer warned them they only had two minutes left until the autodestruct. An awkward silence fell over the room after she stepped back; there was only one question the Doctor wanted to ask, and there was no way he'd taught Melody advanced electronics but failed to train her in how to maintain time streams.

Finally though he couldn't resist. The worst she could do was refuse to answer. "Do you know when Rose is coming back?"

She looked at him and raised her eyebrows. "Very subtle, Doctor."

He tugged at his ear. "It's been a long four years," he said, by way of explanation. "I miss her."

Melody's eyes softened. "I know you do. You don't talk about it much, but sometimes, you get this look in your eye and we all know you're remembering what it was like to be without her."

The Doctor frowned at her; there was something different about her voice… "You're Scottish!" he realised, pinning down the hint of an accent that had slipped through.

" _Autodesctruct in one minute."_

Melody shifted her gaze away from him. "No, but my mum is. I guess I still have a hint of an accent."

The Doctor recognised the mannerisms of someone who was avoiding a topic to maintain the time streams, but he couldn't see why knowing Melody's mother was Scottish could have any impact. Shrugging his shoulders, he let it go.

They were silent again, then Melody asked, "Doctor, why do you think you didn't warn me that the first time you met me was before Rose came back?"

A faint smile crossed his face. "You have no idea how much the few spoilers you've let slip have encouraged me," he told her. "I was really about ready to give up on the idea of ever seeing Rose again, but you're proof that I will. I needed that today. My future self won't take that from me."

The computer started the final countdown and Melody took the two cables in hand. "My gloves should protect me from the sparks," she told the Doctor.

"If they don't, I happen to know of an excellent infirmary nearby."

She shook her head, and he got the distinct impression she was rolling her eyes at him. Then she contacted the two cables in a flurry of sparks.

The autodestruct countdown froze on one second; that was the only sign the Doctor and Melody had that their crazy plan had worked. "Shall we go upstairs and see all the people?" the Doctor asked, gesturing toward the gravity platform.

oOoOoOoOo

Upstairs, the formerly silent Library buzzed with voices as four thousand twenty-two people tried to understand what had happened to them. Mr. Lux rushed over to the Doctor and Melody and hugged them both.

"You did it!" he said, wonder in his voice. "You actually did it!"

The Doctor broke away. "I need to find Donna," he said, scanning the room.

"Yes, of course. We'll get the teleports online shortly and start sending people home."

The Doctor nodded absently as he walked away, looking for a flash of red hair in the crowd.

When he found her, she was scanning the lines of people queuing up to be teleported out of the Library. "Are you ready to go?"

Donna shook her head without looking at him. "I need to find Lee. I promised him I'd find him when we got back."

The Doctor frowned, but after a moment, the furrow in his brow cleared. Donna had met someone while she was in CAL's dreamscape.

"Right. I'll just be…" The Doctor pointed back in the general direction of the shop. She nodded absently, and taking in the look on her face, he hoped she found whoever it was she was looking for.

It didn't surprise the Doctor at all when he skirted the last of the crowd and saw Melody leaning against the wall by the shop. He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at this strange woman who knew so much of his future.

"Who are you, Melody Pond?"

She smiled enigmatically, and the Doctor said the word with her. "Spoilers."

"Exactly, Doctor. I'd ask you to stay and help us get everyone home, but I know you don't like to hang around for the cleanup. So, I suppose… I'll see you later."

"To the future, Professor Pond. I look forward to meeting you." She smiled and walked away.

While the Doctor waited for Donna, he turned the mystery of Melody over and over in his mind. There was something in the story she'd told… _"Sometimes, you get this look in your eye and we all know you're remembering…"_ There was a familiarity in those words that had made him think for a moment that she was his daughter, but he'd discounted the notion almost immediately. He'd have known if she were his much earlier—almost instantly, in fact.

But still, there were other things she'd mentioned—the sonic being a graduation present, for one. She'd said she wasn't a companion; he knew she was family. Somehow.

He saw Donna turning around in circles, a searching look on her face. "Any luck?" he asked when she joined him.

She leaned against the wall. "There wasn't even anyone called Lee in the library that day. I suppose he could have had a different name out here, but, let's be honest, he wasn't real, was he?"

"Maybe not."

"I made up the perfect man. Gorgeous, adores me, and hardly able to speak a word. What's that say about me?"

"Everything." The Doctor's brain caught up with his mouth three seconds too late, and he looked at Donna, who looked like she wanted to slap him. "By which I mean, you're used to having people not listen to you, so your perfect man was someone who would."

She nodded, and they looked back out at the crowd of people teleporting home after being missing for 100 years. "What about you?" Donna asked. "Are you all right?"

The Doctor didn't know how to answer that. He knew Rose was coming back; he was more than all right. But looking at Donna's face, it didn't seem fair to rub her nose in what he was so close to finding, when she'd lost something just as dear.

"Yeah, I'm all right," he said finally.

"Is all right special Time Lord code for really not all right at all?"

The Doctor smiled slightly. Memories of Rose didn't hurt now that he knew she was coming back.

"Why?"

Donna's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Because I'm all right, too."

He held her gaze for a moment, quickly taking in how much this adventure had taken out of her. "Come on." He took her hand and led her back toward the gravity platform.

"Where are we going?"

"I had to move the TARDIS while you were gone," he told her.

Donna took one last look at the crowd as they passed through. "Doctor, when Professor Pond first greeted you, she expected to see Rose, didn't she?"

The Doctor nodded.

"Even though I was here."

He looked at his best friend again, seeing the insecurity lurking in her eyes for the first time. "Donna, you don't think I'll kick you out of the TARDIS when Rose comes back, do you?" They reached the gravity platform, and he used the sonic to take them to the planet's core.

"Donna?" he probed when they reached the bottom and she still hadn't answered.

She flashed him a pale imitation of her usual sassy smile. "Nah, you won't be able to get rid of me that easily, Spaceman," she promised. "Mind, I might give the two of you some time alone to get reacquainted."

The Doctor felt his face heat up at the implication, and Donna laughed with genuine amusement. "Oh, sure, that's how it is," the Doctor said grumpily. "I try to be nice and you make fun of me."

Donna was still laughing when they reached the TARDIS. The Doctor started to pull his key out of his pocket, but then he remembered what Melody had said. He eyed his ship critically for a moment, then snapped his fingers.


	5. Chapter 5

"Doctor," Donna said one morning over breakfast, "I've been doing some research, trying to think of someplace to go. Have you ever been to Midnight?"

The Doctor leaned back against the counter with his tea in hand. "The planet made entirely of diamonds? I've thought about it, but never managed to get there. Something always seems to happen when I try."

"Planet made of diamonds—sounds like a girl's best friend."

He grinned. "Is that an official request then?"

"Yeah. Let's check it out."

"Finish your breakfast and meet me in the console room when you're ready."

Half an hour later, the Doctor followed Donna out of the TARDIS into the only facility on Midnight. The planet's Xtonic sun was deadly to humans, but that hadn't stopped them from turning the place into an exotic resort.

"Come on, Donna," he said, directing her to the main reservations desk.

A woman smiled up at them. "How can I help you today?"

"We need two tickets on the next trip to see the waterfall," he said.

"That's one ticket," Donna corrected, "and one room in the resort."

The Doctor looked over at his best friend in shock. "Did you trick me into taking you to a spa?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Listen, Spaceman, you might be able to run and run and run without any breaks, but some of us need to stop to catch our breath now and then."

"Rose and Martha never complained," he said weakly, though he knew he probably wouldn't have listened to Martha, and he'd willingly taken Rose to more holiday spots than he'd taken anyone else, hoping to impress her.

"Well then it's about time someone did," Donna said tartly.

"Excuse me," the clerk said. "Will that be one room and one ticket?"

The Doctor looked at his friend, then handed the credit stick over with a sigh of resignation. Once she'd run the payment through, she handed Donna a keycard and the Doctor a plastic card that was his ticket.

She withdrew two brochures from the display on the desk. "The tour leaves from this terminal in twenty minutes," she told the Doctor, circling the location on the map. "You'll want to be there five minutes before boarding begins."

Turning to Donna, she opened the second brochure and marked an X on one of the rooms. "You'll be on the second floor, room 214. As a guest, you have access to all our amenities: the exercise room, massage therapists, sauna, mud baths, swimming pools, and hot tubs. I hope you enjoy your stay on Midnight."

"Thanks," Donna said warmly, taking the brochure. "That sounds lovely."

The Doctor took Donna by the elbow and led her away from the desk. "I can't believe you tricked me."

"Oh, come off it." She rolled her eyes. "You get to see your sapphire waterfall, don't you?"

"Well yeah, but—"

"And isn't that why you wanted to come to Midnight in the first place?"

The Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck. "It was."

She looked at him shrewdly. "Don't worry; you'll have a whole bus full of strangers to impress with your brilliance."

He snorted. "Like you're ever impressed with my brilliance. Fine, you stay here in your boring spa—honestly, you could do this on Earth—and I'll go on my tour."

"I'll see you in nine hours," she told him.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor spotted a public phone near the embarkation area and quickly dialled the number for the front desk.

"Midnight Leisure Palace, the only resort on the planet of diamonds: front desk speaking. How may I direct your call?"

"Hi, listen. I'm a guest going on the next tour, and I wondered if I could talk to my friend quickly before we leave."

"Of course, sir. What's their room number?"

"She's by the pool, actually. Red hair. Her name's Donna Noble."

"Please hold, sir."

The bus arrived, and the Doctor started bouncing on his toes. _Come on, come on, come on._

The phone clicked, but before the Doctor could say anything, Donna cut him off. "I said, no."

"Sapphire waterfall. It's a waterfall made of sapphires," he told her again, repeating all the information from the brochure. "This enormous jewel, the size of a glacier reaches the Cliffs of Oblivion, and then shatters into sapphires at the edge. They fall a hundred thousand feet into a crystal ravine."

"I bet you say that to all the girls."

Not for the first time, the Doctor wished Donna were easier to impress. "Oh, come on." Passengers walked by him through the concourse to the boarding area. "They're boarding now. It's no fun if I see it on my own. Four hours, that's all it takes."

"No, that's four hours there and four hours back," she corrected. "That's like a school trip. I'd rather go sunbathing."

"You be careful, that's Xtonic sunlight."

"Oh, I'm safe," she said breezily. "It says in the brochure this glass is fifteen feet thick."

The last call for boarding sounded over the loudspeaker. "All right, I give up. I'll be back for dinner. We'll try that anti-gravity restaurant. With bibs."

"That's a date. Well, not a date," she amended. "Oh, you know what I mean. Oh, get off."

"See you later," he promised her warmly.

"Oi," she said before he could hang up the phone. "And you be careful, all right?"

"Nah," he drawled. "Taking a big space truck with a bunch of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight? What could possibly go wrong?"

The Doctor hung up the phone and boarded the bus, eagerly looking forward to the trip.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose noticed the tension as soon as she stepped into the lab. "What is it?"

"Er, nothing Agent Tyler," Malcolm said nervously.

"Malcolm, you are the worst liar I have ever known. And you two—" She glared at Mickey and Jake. "You know I get automatic reports of any possible cracks, yeah?"

Mickey sighed. "Sorry, Babe. This one looks dangerous though."

Rose held out her hand, and Malcolm handed her the report. The words at the top of the page arrested her attention. "The TARDIS is there?"

"Yes, Agent Tyler!"

"And the planet is completely irradiated by Xtonic sunlight," Jake said.

"Then you'd better make sure I land right next to the TARDIS, hadn't you?" she said blithely and handed the report back.

"We'd feel safer if we transmitted a signal, instead of sending you through."

Rose put her hands on her hips. "You want to transmit my image… what, to a television screen the Doctor happens to be close to? After all I've gone through, all _we've_ gone through, do you think I'm going to do another 'just an image, no touch,' and then disappear? _**Again?**_ "

Mickey stepped forward. "Rose, you need to be reasonable."

"Funny, I kinda thought I was," Rose countered. "This is the first time we've seen a crack by the TARDIS in two months, since…"

"Since you visited an earlier version of the Doctor."

Her ears turned warm at the memory. "This might be my last chance of going home. And you know it isn't even about that anymore. More stars are going out every night; if I don't find the Doctor soon, it'll be too late."

Mickey sighed, and Rose knew she'd won. "Excellent. I'll gear up and be ready to leave in twenty minutes."

Twenty minutes later, she held the yellow button in her hand. "This is it, Micks," she said quietly. "I just know it is."

"I hope you're right, Babe."

Rose smiled at him and hit the button. The trip through the Void felt like it always did: like she was being put through a blender. She'd developed an immunity to the nastier side effects, but it wasn't a form of transportation she'd recommend.

A familiar, beloved blue filled her vision when she landed. The TARDIS hummed in her head, and Rose pulled her key out from under her shirt with shaking hands. The Doctor was close, she could tell, but he wasn't within running distance.

When she pushed open the doors and saw the familiar coral, she breathed a sigh of relief. This was her TARDIS, and her Doctor.

Remembering what had happened last time, Rose turned on her comms. "Control, this is Agent Tyler. I've found the right Doctor. Deactivate auto-recall."

"Copy that Agent Tyler," Mickey said. "Keep us informed of any developments. Agents are standing by to assist as needed."

"I'll relay that information to the Doctor. Tyler out."

Rose set her gun down just inside the door and looked around the console room, wondering what to do. The TARDIS seemed to be pushing her out the door, so she took her coat off and hung it up, then left, laughing.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose had just begun to investigate her surroundings when the Doctor registered her presence. She immediately got the sense that wherever he was, he wouldn't be able to get back to the TARDIS for a while. Anxiety bordering on panic telegraphed over the bond, and she quickly reassured him that she wouldn't be going anywhere.

He calmed down, and Rose turned her attention back to her surroundings—some kind of resort, it seemed. She spied a poster on the wall, advertising tours to the sapphire waterfall, and she knew exactly where the Doctor had gone. Glancing at the brochure, she realised she probably had close to eight hours before he came back.

 _Eight hours by myself on a resort planet?_ A smile crept over Rose's face, and she jogged back to the TARDIS.

The ship hummed again, and Rose ran her hand along the wall as she walked to their room. She hesitated at the door, suddenly unsure if she wanted to see it for the first time without the Doctor by her side. Another door appeared across the hall, and she smiled gratefully as she walked into the room that had been hers for over two years.

A familiar turquoise sundress and a small bag were waiting for her, and Rose giggled at the ship's awareness even as she changed her clothes. It felt good to peel off the heavy trousers and boots that had been part of her armour as she crossed the Void.

Digging into the front pocket of the bag, she found a credit stick. _I missed you, Dear,_ she told the ship, receiving an affectionate hum in return.

Rose found the front desk easily and checked into the Leisure Palace. She was passing by the swimming pool on her way to her room when something tugged at her time senses.

After scanning the room slowly, her gaze settled on a ginger woman sunbathing in a lounge chair. Everyone else's timeline was a simple line, but hers wove around itself.

 _Exactly like a time traveller's would_ , Rose recognised, and walked toward her.

"How'd you finally get the Doctor to take you to a resort planet, then?" she asked casually.

"Found one with some weird alien thing he could do," the woman said, and her exasperation made Rose smile. A second later, her eyes flew open. "Who are you?"

"Rose. Rose Tyler."

The other woman squealed and jumped to her feet. "Oh, this is brilliant!" she said as she pulled Rose into a tight hug. "We didn't know there was a crack here!"

Rose smiled at her excitement. "You have me at a disadvantage."

"Right, sorry. I'm Donna Noble."

"I'm glad to meet someone who knows exactly how to get what she wants out of the Doctor." Rose smiled, letting her tongue peek through her teeth. "Listen, do you mind if I go change into a bathing suit and then join you? You can tell me all about what you've gotten up to with the Doctor."

"I'd love it," Donna said genuinely.

Rose thought about the way Donna had greeted her while she changed. She'd wondered if the Doctor talked about her, or if he'd buried the memories like he tended to do; well now she had her answer.

After she changed, she checked the full length mirror to make sure she looked all right. The red bikini fit perfectly, like TARDIS-provided clothes always did. She wrapped a sheer black sarong around her waist and nodded approvingly.

 _Too bad the Doctor isn't here to enjoy it,_ she thought. Then a wicked idea occurred to her. Rose closed her eyes and quieted her mind, focusing as hard as she could on her bond with the Doctor. After a minute, she could tell he'd noticed her attempt and she brought to mind the picture of herself, ready to enjoy the resort.

Immediately, she felt a combined pulse of appreciation and frustration come from him. She grinned in satisfaction, and not just at his reaction. That was gratifying, of course, but this was also the first time she'd attempted to contact him from this far away.

She remembered what he'd said before they bonded about being able to communicate with your bond mate, no matter how far away they were, and she realised she could tease him much more efficiently once their bond became the full marriage bond.

When she returned to the pool area, Donna had ordered her a drink. "Because we need to celebrate. I didn't know what you liked, but I thought a fruity drink with one of those little umbrella thingies would fit the atmosphere."

"It's perfect, Donna," Rose said, taking a sip of her mai tai. "Oooh, made just the way I like it, with Maldorian rum."

She took another sip, then set the drink down. "I take it the Doctor's talked about me?"

Donna snorted. "Are you joking? I can barely get him to stop talking about you—no offence."

"None taken," Rose said, stifling a laugh.

"Yeah, well he probably wouldn't say quite so much, except I was there right after you said goodbye, and then again when you disappeared six months ago."

Rose was tempted to ask Donna how he'd been, especially after their goodbye, but she bit the question back. As much as she wanted to know, she wanted the Doctor to tell her.

"That wrecked me," she said instead. "I can't believe I forgot about the stupid auto-recall." She remembered something Donna had said earlier. "Wait, so you've been looking for cracks from this side?"

"Yeah, he started a scan right after London, looking for cracks of any size. It's funny—I wonder why she didn't tell him you might be here."

A twinge of unease ran through Rose. If the Doctor'd had the TARDIS scanning for cracks, she should have told him there was one here. The only reason Rose could think of that she wouldn't was if there was something he needed to be doing, something he wouldn't do if he knew she was coming.

"So, coming here was your idea?" Rose asked casually.

Donna nodded. "I spent hours on the internet, looking for a resort near something weird and alien. I figured a planet made of diamonds under a sun that will kill you would probably intrigue him."

Rose nodded, and pushed away her misgivings. If the TARDIS hadn't brought them here, then maybe it was just a coincidence that the crack had opened right when they got here. And maybe… maybe she hadn't seen the crack in time to tell the Doctor.

Donna smiled gently. "He's been completely fixated on finding you. How long were you together before you were trapped?"

"Officially, not quite three months. But really, we were together from the moment I set foot on his ship… so that would be almost three years."

Rose felt her own grief welling up, and cleared her throat. "But you've apparently heard all about me already. Tell me some of the things you've done with the Doctor."

Donna accepted the change of topic and Rose listened while she launched into the story of their recent adventure in the Library.

oOoOoOoOo

An hour later, they were lounging in the hot tub, exchanging stories about meeting the Ood. "Good for you!" Rose said when she heard Donna'd played a huge role in finally freeing them from slavery. "I wanted to join the Friends of the Ood back when we met them, but well… time travel doesn't really lend itself to club membership."

"Or holding down a regular job," Donna agreed. "Every time I talk to my mother—which isn't often, mind—she reminds me that I'm just a temp."

Rose looked at Donna, really looked at her. "Oh Donna, you're so much more than that," she said earnestly. "You are going to do amazing, incredible things."

Donna looked at her askance. "How could I? I'm nobody."

"You aren't. You travel with the Doctor, and that means you're always in a position to make a difference, somehow. Who was it who convinced the Ood not to destroy you and the Doctor?"

Something tugged at Rose's time senses, and she focused on it, ignoring Donna for a moment. There was a tipping point nearby, a moment in time where two possibilities sharply diverged from each other.

"Bugger," she muttered.

"What's that, Rose?"

"I know why the TARDIS didn't tell you there was a crack here," she said grimly. "Something's about to happen on that bus, and the Doctor needs to be there to make sure it doesn't."

Donna looked at her, wide-eyed. "You can see it too, then? The Doctor told me when we were in Pompeii… He said he could see time, what could be changed, what couldn't."

"Yeah. I can see it too." Rose looked at Donna sharply. "What was he thinking, taking you to a fixed point?"

"Oh, well he was trying for Rome." The two women shared a look of amused commiseration over the Doctor's spotty driving record, then Donna said, "As soon as he realised where we were, he wanted to leave, but…" The look on Donna's face was half embarrassment, half resentment.

Rose shifted and stretched her legs out in front of her. "Did he ever tell you—I mean really tell you—what a fixed point is?"

"Something that can't be changed."

"More than that." Rose flexed her fingers, remembering the itchy, crawling feeling under her skin when she'd come across a fixed point. "I've only been near a fixed point once, and as soon as I got there, I made my team turn around and leave. Because if we'd done something, if we'd changed what happened there that day, even accidentally, it would have damaged the fabric of reality."

Donna raised an eyebrow. "You're talking like him now. Fabric of reality?"

"Yes!" Rose exclaimed. "Most events you can change, and Time just compensates for the difference. But there are some things, some events so integral to everything around them that to change them would send ripples throughout time, and everything would start to collapse."

"Well, why didn't he just say that then?"

"You didn't just agree with him when he said you needed to leave. You stayed and demanded he try to make a difference." Rose shrugged. "I love him, but the Doctor doesn't like to be challenged."

"How did you know I did those things?"

Rose laughed. "Because you, Donna Noble, are brilliant."

"So there's something happening on the bus that the Doctor needed to be there for?"

"Yep."

In the quiet moment that followed, Rose paid attention to the emotions she felt from the Doctor. He wasn't scared; that was good. But his bubbly happiness had completely disappeared, leaving behind the strength and determination she'd always felt from them when they were in the middle of a serious situation.

Donna shifted in the water, sending ripples over Rose. "Well, I don't know about you," she said, "but suddenly I'm not interested in a spa day."

Gratitude rushed over Rose. "I'll meet you in the cafe in fifteen minutes," she said, standing up as well.


	6. Chapter 6

In her room, Rose changed quickly despite her shaking hands. _Look at yourself,_ she thought with some annoyance. _Four years at Torchwood, including a year of jumping, and your hands were always steady. One day back in this universe, and you're shaking._

But she knew why. Putting herself in danger was always easier than knowing the Doctor was in danger. As she packed her suit and towel back in her bag, she remembered the panic attack she'd nearly had on Krop Tor because he'd gone down into the drill shaft and she hadn't know if she would see him again.

On her way to the cafe, Rose stopped at the front desk. "Excuse me, I was wondering about the tour to the waterfalls." The clerk's expression shuttered, and Rose tamped down her concern. "My fiancé is on it, and I can't remember when he said he'd be back."

The woman licked her lips, and Rose could see her debating if she should lie. She tried to look like something somewhere in between the formidable Agent Tyler and a woman anxious to see her lover, and it must have worked, because she finally nodded.

"Well, unfortunately for him but fortunately for you, the bus encountered some mechanical problems about halfway there. We've sent a rescue vehicle, so he'll miss the tour but be back at the resort in about three and a half hours."

Rose bit her lip; that wasn't the best scenario, but it was better than it could have been. "Thank you," she said sincerely, then went to find the cafe.

Donna was waiting for her at a table when she arrived. "I ordered us both what passes for pasta in this galaxy. It should be here any minute."

Rose opened her mouth to protest, but Donna hushed her with a raised eyebrow. "You might be more alien than human, but you've got to eat. This gives us something to do while we wait."

"Fine," Rose agreed, seeing she wasn't going to get anywhere arguing.

"I stopped by the front desk to see if I could learn anything about the Doctor's tour. Apparently, they've had some sort of mechanical problem, and a rescue vehicle is on its way out to get them."

"Well, that's not so bad."

Rose looked at Donna, not bothering to hide her growing concern.

"That's not the thing you sensed, it is?"

Their food arrived before Rose could answer, and for a minute, they were both occupied with thanking their server and taking inventory of their plates. After taking a few bites, Rose set down her knife and fork and looked at Donna.

"No, it isn't, and that's what worries me. I think something _caused_ the mechanical problem, and that something is…" She pressed her fingers to her temples, trying to grasp what she was sensing.

"I thought nothing lived on Midnight."

Rose snorted. "Humans," she said, sounding like her first Doctor. "Just because you can't survive on this planet doesn't mean nothing else could. And you'd never know, because you can't go out and explore."

The Doctor's concern was deepening, and Rose could tell he was trying to hide it from her. She clenched her fingers around her fork until her knuckles went white.

"Hey," Donna said softly. "Go easy on that fork. What's it ever done to you?"

Rose laughed harshly. "Something's wrong, Donna. Something is very, very wrong."

After that announcement, both women lost what little appetite they'd had. Donna signalled to the server to take their food away and asked for coffee and tea while Rose focused on the Doctor and the timelines.

"What do you mean, something's wrong?" Donna asked once they had their beverages.

Rose breathed in the familiar aroma of her tea and let it calm her slightly. "I don't know, really. All I know for sure is that this is a What Must Not Happen, and the Doctor is right in the middle of it. And he's worried, which worries me."

A twinge of something else pressed against Rose's mind. She closed her eyes and focused on it, wishing they had a full marriage bond so they could actually communicate.

"Rose?"

"It's like…"

The Doctor's familiar mental presence changed just slightly, and Rose's eyes flew open. "There's something in his mind," she breathed.

"What do you mean?"

"The… creature he's dealing with—there's got to be something there, it can't be a human—it's getting into his mind, but it's so subtle that he's not noticing it." She frowned. "Or he's too focused on the novelty of whatever it is to notice this thing is slowly moving into his head."

Rose gritted her teeth and tried to push a mauve warning over the bond toward the Doctor, but without the ability to actually communicate, she couldn't tell him anything more than to be careful. And without details, he wouldn't know what she'd just noticed.

"I hate being so useless," she ranted suddenly. "Why couldn't I have landed in that bus so I could be there with him right now?"

Donna reached out and took her hand. "Maybe if you were there, the… thing would go for you instead. I can only imagine what the Doctor would be like if something was threatening to hurt you."

"Yeah, but if we were together, maybe we could figure out a way to fight against it."

She turned her attention to the growing presence in her bond mate's mind and tried to force it out. A jolt of cruel amusement shot through her mind, and Rose was pushed to the edge of the Doctor's consciousness.

The Doctor noticed then. Even with their bond stretched as thin as it was, Rose felt his anger at the creature who was tampering with it.

oOoOoOoOo

The next twenty-five minutes or so were a nightmare. The Doctor was slowly pushed into a cage in his own mind, until Rose suspected he could no longer control even his own body. His terror was a living, breathing force in their bond, but when she tried to offer him some kind of comfort, he threw up so many walls it actually gave her a headache.

She was hurt for a few minutes, until she realised he was trying to protect her, to shelter her from the thing inside his mind. Rose had no idea if their bond provided enough of a connection for it to move from him to her, and she made a mental note to ask him about things like that later.

Because there _would_ be a later. She hadn't come all this way only to lose him to some alien creature while he was on a holiday excursion.

The Doctor's terror spiked suddenly, which in turn terrified Rose—she honestly hadn't thought it was possible to be _more_ afraid than he had been already. _What is going on out there?_ She let out a soft moan, then felt Donna take her hands.

For a minute, maybe longer, she trembled on the precipice between sanity and madness. Then suddenly, the presence of the entity in the Doctor's mind disappeared, and he was himself again.

"It's gone," Rose breathed out. "It's gone, it's gone, it's gone." She clutched onto Donna's hands like a lifeline. "He's going to be okay, Donna. He's coming back to me."

"Well I bloody well hope so," she said tartly. "Because I don't intend to be stuck on some leisure planet for the rest of my life."

Rose drew in a breath and let it out slowly, only looking at her friend when she felt like she'd regained some control over her emotions.

"Oh… I could take us home in the TARDIS, if it came down to that," she said. "But I'm so glad I don't have to."

Her throat was tight, and one tear leaked out.

Donna tightened her grip on her hand. "How's that?" she asked, and Rose knew she was trying to distract her from the wait. "I mean, I've helped a little, but there's no way I could actually fly her home."

Rose bit her lip. "I'm actually… Um, do you know how the Doctor flies her? I mean, not just pulling the right levers and everything, but what actually lets him truly pilot the TARDIS?"

"He's never told me, but the way he talks to that ship, like he's known her forever, I figure they must… communicate somehow."

"You're dead clever, you know, Donna?

Donna shook her head. "I'm not anything special. I'm just a temp from Chiswick."

"A temp who can keep the Doctor under control, who's kind enough to try to calm me down right now, and—more to the point—who figured out without being told that the Doctor has a telepathic bond with the TARDIS. You _are_ clever."

Donna started to argue, then she looked at Rose. "Hang on. You brought that up because I asked how you'd be able to fly us home. Are you telling me you've the same kind of connection with his ship?"

Rose smiled faintly. "See? Clever." She tilted her head. "And she's our ship, not just his."

Donna snorted. "How's that work? Or are marital property laws universal?"

That drew a laugh from Rose. "No, that's just the way it is. When you bond with a TARDIS, she becomes yours, and you become hers."

They kept talking until an employee walked up to their table. "Excuse me, ladies, but since you have a friend on the tour bus, I thought you'd like to know the rescue vehicle has arrived and all passengers have been transferred over. We expect their return in an hour and a half."

oOoOoOoOo

"Bus arriving in five minutes."

Rose and Donna looked at each other when they heard the announcement over the loudspeaker. "I'm going back to the TARDIS," Donna said. "I think he's going to need you when he gets back, and if I'm here, he'll feel like he has to talk to me. I'll just… hole up in my room for the night."

"Are you sure?" Rose asked, even though she was relieved by the offer.

Donna smiled. "Yeah. Just knock on my door when you're ready for breakfast."

All the thanks Rose wanted to give stuck in her throat, so she hugged the woman instead. "See you in the morning."

She watched her new friend walk away, then turned back to the bus terminal. The Doctor was close, but his excitement over seeing her again was dulled by the trauma of having the creature attempt to take over his mind. It wasn't what she'd imagined for their reunion, but suddenly she was so glad she'd insisted on coming. Donna was right; he would need her.

oOoOoOoOo

The Doctor remained silent on the whole ride back to the Leisure Palace. There wasn't much conversation going on anyway, and no one wanted to talk to him. If they talked to him, they'd have to confront the fact that they'd tried to kill him.

The silence suited him just fine. His head ached from the pressure the creature had put on his consciousness, and all he wanted was a few hours alone to sort out his thoughts.

He'd been so excited to see Rose again, and he was suddenly deeply angry that the entity had stolen their happy reunion from them. In all the times he'd dreamed about finding her, he'd never been limping back to a spa with a raw, aching mind, needing to rest and heal before he could even enjoy her presence.

Rose would understand, because Rose always understood. But she deserved the reunion of her dreams, where he caught her up and spun her around before dipping her back and kissing her passionately.

When the bus arrived back at the resort, the other passengers looked at the Doctor, and he realised they were allowing him to leave first, as the only apology he'd get. He stepped off the bus and his eyes swept the terminal.

Some of his earlier joy returned when he saw Rose run toward him. He didn't catch her up and swing her around, but he did hold her as tightly as he could, burying his face in her hair.

"I'm so glad you're here," he whispered against her neck, and she wrapped her arms tighter around his waist.

"What do you think it was?" she asked.

He pulled back slightly, but didn't let her go. "No idea."

"Do you think it's still out there?" The affirmative rang loud and clear across their bond. "Well, you'd better tell this lot."

"Yeah." He took her hand and they walked toward the front desk and main office. "They can build a Leisure Palace somewhere else. Let this planet keep on turning round an Xtonic star, in silence."

It wasn't easy to convince the management that they needed to shut down the facility, and the Doctor got the impression that if it weren't for the missing hostess and Rose's commanding presence beside him, they would have refused. But finally they agreed, and Rose and the Doctor walked back to the TARDIS.

"Where's Donna?" he said as they walked into the console room. "I've only just realised…"

"She stayed with me while we waited for you to get back, and then right before the bus arrived, she came back here. Said she was gonna stay in her room for the night, and we could wake her up for breakfast."

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair. "That's… that's Donna."

"She's brilliant," Rose said quietly.

"Yeah. Yeah, she is."

The Doctor turned to Rose. "You know what else I've only just realised? My bond mate has come home after being missing for almost four years, and I haven't kissed her yet."

Anticipation pulsed over the bond. "Well then, you probably ought to fix that."

She smiled at him with her tongue peeking out, and the last of his restraint disappeared. He groaned and swooped down to capture that tongue in a kiss, licking at her lips and relishing her taste.

 _I've missed you so much, love._

 _Just as much as I've missed you._

The hand on her waist slipped around to the small of her back and pulled her close. _Doctor… please._

The Doctor felt her hand brush through the hair at his temple, and the awareness that she wanted the deeper telepathic contact they'd always shared when they made love shocked him out of the kiss.

Rose looked up at him in surprise. "What is it?"

"I… It was in my head."

She understood instantly, like he'd known she would. "Do you want my help healing the damage?" she asked quietly.

The Doctor swallowed hard. "Please." Her hands slid down his arms until she laced the fingers of her left with his right. He tried to remember how to show her how grateful he was, and he thought he succeeded when she squeezed his hand.

He led her to their room, feeling a little thrill at the pronoun. No matter how upset the day had left him, it had also brought him Rose.

In unspoken agreement, they dressed for bed. The Doctor turned down the duvet and climbed in first, patting her side of the bed invitingly. He felt her disbelief that she was finally home and her fear that she'd wake up and realise this was just a dream.

"You're here, Rose."

The words broke her out of the trance she'd been in, and thirty seconds later, they were both lying down under the duvet, facing each other.

 _How do you want to do this?_

The Doctor considered her question, even though there was really only one answer.

 _You don't have to hide from me,_ she told him, once again showing how well she knew him.

He swallowed and nodded, then lifted his hand to her temple. He waited until she was in position, then they both made contact and slipped into each other's minds.

The normal organisation of his mind had been thrown into chaos. He felt Rose's presence, and then she carefully moved to the raw edges of his consciousness, soothing them as best she could while he began to reorder his memories. He'd tried not to think about what the entity had done to him, but looking at the evidence in front of him, he felt violated.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he felt Rose wrap her love around him. _I am so sorry this happened to you, Doctor._

 _It isn't the first time,_ he told her, giving her a glimpse of some of his darker memories.

He didn't know how long it would have taken him to clear out his mind to a point where he felt comfortable in it again if Rose hadn't been there. The bond and her physical presence gave him a strength he wouldn't have had otherwise.

 _I think that's good enough,_ he said when his mind felt like his own again. _The rest will heal on its own_. The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, they were back on New Earth, reclining on his coat.

They looked over at the cars flying through the sky to the city of New New York. _I was so nervous when I brought you here the first time. You'd agreed to come with me, but I didn't know if you really saw me as me yet._

 _Is that why you mentioned the Earth being destroyed? To see how I'd respond if you brought up something we'd done before you regenerated?_

 _Yep. And you called it our first date. That was even better than I could have hoped for._

Rose shifted closer to him and stroked his face tenderly. _No matter how many times you regenerate, you will always be my Doctor,_ she told him.

The Doctor looked up at his bond mate, taking in the love in her eyes. _I'm so glad you were here today,_ he admitted, his voice cracking a bit at the end.

She traced her finger over his left eyebrow. _So am I._

Need rose up in him, finally eclipsing the trauma of the day. He rose up on his elbow to face her and trailed a hand down her side, loving the shudder he drew from her. Keeping his eyes locked with hers, he moved slowly toward her lips until they just barely brushed against his.

Rose tried to press closer and deepen the kiss, but some puckish impulse drove the Doctor to pull back every time she made a move. Finally, after she tried to suck his bottom lip into her mouth and he denied them both the pleasure, he heard a whimper from the back of her throat.

He smiled, then pulled her close and adjusted the angle of the kiss to deepen it. Gentle tenderness went out the window the moment his tongue touched hers—this was hot and wet, and nothing had felt so good in years.

Rose's hand curled around the back of his neck, and she pulled him down until he lay half on top of her, with one of his legs slotted between hers.

oOoOoOoOo

When they slowly slipped back into the physical world, they discovered their clothes had already been discarded as their telepathic embrace had heated up.

The Doctor looked at Rose, his lover and bond mate, taking in every inch of her beauty. "You are just as gorgeous as I remembered," he said hoarsely. "I have an eidetic memory, but sometimes I was afraid missing you had made me exaggerate how lovely you are."

Rose ran her hands over his bare chest. "I missed you so much, my Doctor."

His hands roamed over her body, relearning the texture of her skin and the places that made her shiver. "I believe I promised you a proper reunion shag."

She breathed out a shaky laugh. "Yeah, you did. You gonna deliver on that any time soon?"

"Might do." The Doctor shifted, settling himself on top of Rose. "Would now work for you?"

"Now is—" She gasped when he kissed the hollow of her throat. "Now is good."

oOoOoOoOo

Rose's first thought, when she woke up with her arms wrapped around a pillow instead of the Doctor, was that she'd dreamt it all. She buried her face in the soft cotton pillow case, but before the sobs choking her could escape, she felt the gentle hum of the TARDIS, and better yet, the Doctor's warm happiness.

She shoved the pillow away and sat up, taking in the familiar dark cherry four poster bed and burgundy duvet. The Doctor wasn't anywhere to be seen, but his presence in her mind kept her from panicking over his absence.

 _I'm bringing you breakfast in bed,_ he told her, and Rose sighed happily both at the gesture and at his contentment.

While she waited for him to get back, Rose sat up and arranged the pillows against the headboard so they could comfortably sit in bed together and enjoy their breakfast. Their clothes were still scattered around the room, and Rose ignored her own pyjamas in favour of the Doctor's soft undershirt.

She'd only just slipped back under the duvet when she heard soft footsteps outside the door. Metal clinked against glass, and she giggled when the Doctor cursed in Gallifreyan before the door opened.

He arched an eyebrow at her. "Laughing at me when I got up to make you breakfast? That's not very nice, Rose Tyler," he chided as he walked toward her side of the bed.

Rose pulled her gaze away from his bare chest with difficulty. She'd always loved the way he looked in just pyjama bottoms, and judging by the satisfaction she felt from him, he hadn't forgotten.

She gave him the tongue-touched smile she now knew all Doctors would love. "Not nice, maybe," she said in answer to his comment. "But you love me anyway."

The rush of agreement passing over the bond was dizzying. The Doctor stared down at her, ardent love in his eyes.

"I do," he agreed, and the solemn tone of those familiar words made Rose's heart beat faster. After four years, she ached to complete their bond, and maybe the Doctor wanted that as much as she did.

Feeling rusty and out of practice, she reached for the love he was projecting and added her love to it before sending it back to him. When the tray shook a little in his hands, she thought maybe she wasn't as rusty as she'd feared.

"Why don't you give that to me before you drop it?" she suggested, only a hint of teasing in her voice.

To her surprise, the suggestion made him nervous. He hesitated for a moment, then nodded and set it down on her lap before moving back to his side of the bed and sitting down beside her, his pyjama-clad legs stretched out on the bed in front of him.

Rose looked down at the tray. He'd made her a full English, and she couldn't wait to take a bite of the tomatoes—something Pete's World didn't have. But as she reached for her fork, something else caught her attention.

"I saw this before," she said, picking up the small, wooden box instead. "In your pocket that day, when I went looking for the psychic paper."

"I'd just gotten it for you on Razda that morning," he told her. "I planned to give it to you after we visited your mother, and then…"

He didn't have to complete the sentence. Rose remembered the heartache of what happened then just as well as he did.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Why don't you open it and find out?" Rose glanced over at him, but the Doctor's eyes were fixed on the box in her hands.

Something about the way he looked at it had butterflies fluttering in her stomach. She grasped the top half of the box, then closed her eyes and pulled the lid off.

"You can look, you know," the Doctor said drily. "It's for you after all."

The solemn mood that had settled in the room broke, and most of the butterflies in Rose's stomach disappeared. She opened her eyes and tipped the contents of the box out into her left hand without looking first.

All the butterflies came back when something small, round, and cool hit her palm. She looked down at the beautiful sapphire ring and then up at the Doctor with wide eyes.

He took the ring from her and held it up between them. "I know we compared the bond we have now with engagement, but when I saw this, I realised there was one thing missing to make it a genuine, human engagement."

"I never expected you to do things the human way, Doctor."

Rose looked up at him as she said this, and the tenderness in his eyes took her breath away.

"But you were always willing to do them the Time Lord way. Can't we do both?" He drew in a breath. "Marry me, love?"

She sniffed. "Yeah. Yeah, 'course I will."

The Doctor took her left hand and slid the ring into place. "If you want a traditional wedding with a white gown…"

Rose shook her head. "Not with Mum in a different universe." She held her left hand out in front of them. "She woulda loved this. Would've yelled at you, mind, but still…"

"Do you know, I've actually missed being yelled at by your mother?" Rose snorted. "No, really I have. I missed everything about you, and that includes visiting Jackie."

She dropped her hand and laced her fingers through his, loving the way that pressed the cool band of the ring into her skin. "Mum was the only one who stood by me when I started working on the dimension cannon," she said. "Everyone else—including Dad—kept saying it was impossible, but she said, and I quote, 'That alien don't know everything, so shut up and help Rose get home.'"

The Doctor laughed and kissed the palm of her hand. "Take note of this day, Rose Tyler, because I'll probably never say it again: I am so glad your mother was right, and I was wrong."

 **AN:** That's the end of this story. After this, the story would essentially converge with the proper timeline, the one where Rose was never lost in Pete's World in the first place. If I continued on with Stolen Earth and Journey's End, it would just give away what I'll do with those stories when I get there eventually.

Thank you everyone for reading and commenting.


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